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Guidelines For Reviewers

Peer review is vital for enhancing the quality, credibility and acceptability of published research and practice papers. Please carefully observe the following guidelines while reviewing a manuscript.

Expertise:A reviewer is expected to provide a good, honest and fair assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the work/manuscript on its various sections. The subject-matter of a paper sent to a reviewer may/may not be identical to his/her field of expertise. One may not be precisely qualified in a particular field to be a constructive reviewer. A reviewer’s job is to review the overall quality of a manuscript sent to him/her. So if the paper is not according to the reviewer’s expertise, he/she should return it to the editorial team without delay.

Confidentiality:Reviewers receive unpublished work, which must be treated as confidential until published. Reviewers must not disclose to others which papers they have reviewed; also they must not share those papers with any other person.

Intellectual Quality of Manuscript:The constructive feedback from reviewer(s) will help the author(s) to improve their manuscript. A paper must be judged on its intellectual merits alone. Personal criticism or criticism based solely on the political or social views of the reviewer is not acceptable. Remember it is the authors’ paper and the reviewers have no right to make it rewritten to match their own preferred style if it is basically sound and clear. However, suggestions for changes that can improve the clarity of manuscript are important. The suggestions must be based on valid academic or technical grounds.

Conflict of interest:Reviewers must declare any conflict of interest or any other factor, which may affect their review work e.g., for instance a reviewer may have received a paper of a colleague or an intellectual competitor / opponent. In cases of conflict of interest, the reviewer(s) are requested to notify the editorial team of their inability to review a manuscript.

Full explanation:Reviewers are obliged to be specific, objective, relevant and constructive in their feedback on the manuscript and the quality of work. Critical or opposing judgments must be fully supported by detailed reference to evidence from the paper under review or other relevant sources.

Plagiarism and copyright:If a reviewer considers that a paper may contain plagiarism or it might breach another party’s copyright, they should notify the editorial group for the journal about it along with providing the relevant citations to support their claim.

Member of Editorial Board as Reviewer:If a member from editorial board is reviewing a manuscript, then a transparent and blind review would be ensured. In this case, providing a manuscript for double blind review would be handled by another member of the editorial board.

Responsiveness:Reviewers are asked to return their reports within three months. This assists us to provide rapid feedback to the author.

Expectations Post Review:After reviewing a manuscript, the reviewer must keep the details of manuscript and its review confidential. The reviewer would respond promptly to the matter if contacted from Journal for any details about the reviewed manuscript.